Part 4

— His Royal Highness Monsieur, it was said to Pittrino, who often comes to our town, would not at all like to see his illustrious mother so scantily clad, and he would cast you into the dungeons of the State, for he is not always tender-hearted, that glorious prince. Therefore erase the two sirens or the legend, or else I forbid you to display the signboard. This is for your own good, Master Cropole, and for yours, Lord Pittrino.

What answer could be made to that? They had to thank the alderman for his kindness; which is what Cropole did.

But Pittrino remained gloomy and disappointed.

He well foresaw what was going to happen. No sooner had the magistrate left than Cropole, crossing his arms:

— Well! master, said he, what are we to do?

— We shall remove the legend, said Pittrino sadly. I have some excellent ivory black, it will be done in a trice, and we shall replace the Medici with Nymphs or Sirens, as you please.

— No, said Cropole, my father's wish would not be fulfilled. My father cared...

— He cared for the figures, said Pittrino.

— He cared for the legend, said Cropole.

— The proof that he cared for the figures is that he had them commissioned to be lifelike, and they are, replied Pittrino.

— Yes, but had they not been so, who would have recognized them without the legend? Even today, now that the memory of the people of Blois is somewhat fading regarding these famous persons, who would recognize Catherine and Marie without those words: To the Medici?

— But after all, my figures? said Pittrino in despair, for he felt that little Cropole was right. I do not wish to lose the fruit of my labor.

— I do not wish you to go to prison and me to the dungeons.

— Let us erase Medici, said Pittrino imploringly.

— No, replied Cropole firmly. An idea comes to me, a sublime idea... your painting shall appear, and my legend too... Does not Medici mean physician in Italian?

— Yes, in the plural.

— Then you shall order another signboard plate from the blacksmith; you shall paint six physicians upon it, and write beneath: To the Medici... which makes a pleasant pun.

— Six physicians! Impossible! And the composition? cried Pittrino.

— That is your concern, but it shall be thus, I will it, it must be. My macaroni is burning.

This reason was peremptory; Pittrino obeyed. He composed the signboard of the six physicians with the legend; the alderman applauded and authorized it. The signboard met with wild success in the town. Which goes to show that poetry has always been wrong before the bourgeoisie, as Pittrino says. Cropole, to make amends to his regular painter, hung the nymphs of the former signboard in his bedchamber, which made Madame Cropole blush every time she looked at them while undressing in the evening.

Thus it was that the house with the gable came to have a signboard, thus it was that, prospering, the Medici inn was forced to enlarge by the quadrangle we have described.

Thus it was that there was in Blois an inn of that name, owned by Master Cropole and with Master Pittrino as regular painter.

Chapter VI — The Stranger

Thus founded and recommended by its signboard, Master Cropole's inn was moving toward solid prosperity. It was not an immense fortune that Cropole had in prospect, but he could hope to double the thousand gold louis bequeathed by his father, to make another thousand louis from the sale of the house and the business, and finally free, to live happily like a townsman. Cropole was grasping; he received with the joy of a madman the news of the arrival of King Louis XIV.

He, his wife, Pittrino and two kitchen boys immediately laid hands on all the inhabitants of the dovecote, the poultry yard and the rabbit hutches, so that as many lamentations and cries were heard in the courts of the Medici Inn as had once been heard in Rama.

Cropole had at the moment but a single traveler.

He was a man scarce thirty years old, handsome, tall, austere, or rather melancholy in each of his gestures and glances. He was clad in a black velvet coat with jet trimmings; a white collar, simple as those of the severest Puritans, set off the matte and fine tint of his full young neck; a light blond mustache barely covered his trembling and disdainful lip. He spoke to people looking them in the face, without affectation, it is true, but without scruple; so that the brightness of his blue eyes became so unbearable that more than one gaze lowered before his, as the weakest sword does in single combat. In that time when men, all created equal by God, were divided, thanks to prejudices, into two distinct castes, the gentleman and the commoner, as they are truly divided into two races, the black and the white, in that time, we say, he whose portrait we have just sketched could not fail to be taken for a gentleman, and of the best race. For that it sufficed to consult his hands, long, slender and white, whose every muscle, every vein showed through the skin at the slightest movement, whose phalanges reddened at the slightest tension.

This gentleman had therefore arrived alone at Cropole's. He had taken without hesitation, without even reflecting, the most important apartment, which the innkeeper had shown him with a view to rapacity most blameworthy, say some, most praiseworthy, say others, if they admit that Cropole was a physiognomist and judged people at first sight. This apartment was that which composed the whole front of the old triangular house: a large salon lit by two windows on the first floor, a small chamber beside it, another above. Now, since his arrival, this gentleman had scarce touched the meal that had been served him in his chamber. He had spoken but two words to the host to warn him that a traveler named Parry would come, and to recommend that this traveler be allowed to come up. Then, he had kept so deep a silence that Cropole had been almost offended, he who liked people of good company. Finally, this gentleman had risen early on the morning of the day this story begins, and had gone to the window of his salon, seated on the sill and leaning on the balcony rail, sadly and stubbornly looking to both sides of the street to watch no doubt for the coming of that traveler he had signaled to the host. He had thus seen pass the little cortège of Monsieur returning from the hunt, then had again savored the deep tranquility of the town, absorbed as he was in his waiting.

Suddenly, the bustle of the poor going to the meadows, of the couriers departing, of the pavement washers, of the purveyors of the royal house, of the startled and talkative shopboys, of the carts in motion, of the barbers on the run and the pages on duty; this tumult and clamor had surprised him, but without his losing aught of that impassive and supreme majesty which gives the eagle and the lion that serene and contemptuous glance amid the hurrahs and stampings of hunters or curious onlookers.

Soon the cries of the victims slaughtered in the poultry yard, the hurried steps of Madame Cropole on the little wooden stair so narrow and so resonant, the bounding gait of Pittrino, who, even that morning, had been smoking at the door with the phlegm of a Dutchman, all this gave the traveler a beginning of surprise and agitation.

As he rose to inquire, the chamber door opened.

The stranger thought that no doubt they were bringing him the so impatiently awaited traveler.

He therefore, with a sort of precipitance, took three steps toward that opening door.

But instead of the face he hoped to see, it was Master Cropole who appeared, and behind him, in the dimness of the stair, the rather pretty but by curiosity made vulgar face of Madame Cropole, who cast a furtive glance at the handsome gentleman and disappeared. Cropole advanced with a smiling air, cap in hand, rather bent than bowing.

A gesture of the stranger questioned him without any word being spoken.

— Sir, said Cropole, I came to ask how I should say: Your Lordship, or Monsieur the Count, or Monsieur the Marquis?...

— Say "Monsieur," and say it quickly, replied the stranger with that haughty accent which admits neither discussion nor reply.

— I came therefore to inquire how Monsieur had passed the night, and whether Monsieur intended to keep this apartment.

— Yes.

— Monsieur, it is that an incident arises which we had not counted on.

— Which?

— His Majesty Louis XIV enters our town today and rests there a day, perhaps two.

A lively astonishment showed on the face of the stranger.

— The King of France comes to Blois?

— He is on the road, monsieur.

— Then, all the more reason for me to stay, said the stranger.

— Very well, monsieur; but does Monsieur keep the whole apartment?

— I do not understand you. Why should I have less today than I had yesterday?

— Because, monsieur, Your Lordship will permit me to tell him, yesterday I ought not, when you chose your lodging, to fix any price that might have made Your Lordship believe I prejudged his means... whereas today...

The stranger reddened. The idea came to him at once that he was suspected of being poor and that he was being insulted.

— Whereas today, he resumed coldly, you prejudge?

— Monsieur, I am a gentleman, thank God! and, innkeeper though I may seem, there is gentle blood in me; my father was servant and officer to the late Monsieur the Marshal d'Ancre. God have his soul!...

— I do not dispute that point, monsieur; only, I wish to know, and know quickly, what your questions tend to.

— You are, monsieur, too reasonable not to understand that our town is small, that the court will invade it, that the houses will overflow with inhabitants, and that, consequently, rents will acquire a considerable value.

The stranger reddened again.

— Make your terms, monsieur, said he.

— I make them with scruple, monsieur, because I seek an honest gain and wish to make a deal without being uncivil or coarse in my wishes... Now, the apartment you occupy is considerable, and you are alone...:

— That is my concern.

— Oh! certainly; also I do not dismiss Monsieur.

Blood rushed to the stranger's temples; he cast upon poor Cropole, descendant of an officer of Monsieur the Marshal d'Ancre, a glance that would have made him retreat under that famous hearthstone, had Cropole not been screwed to his place by the matter of his interests.

— Do you wish me to leave? Explain yourself, but promptly.

— Monsieur, monsieur, you have not understood me. What I do is most delicate; but I express myself ill, or perhaps, as Monsieur is a foreigner, which I recognize by the accent...

Indeed, the stranger spoke with the slight burr which is the principal character of English accentuation, even among men of that nation who speak French most purely.

— As Monsieur is a foreigner, I say, perhaps it is he who does not grasp the nuances of my speech. I mean that Monsieur might abandon one or two of the three rooms he occupies, which would greatly diminish his rent and ease my conscience; indeed, it is hard to unreasonably raise the price of rooms, when one has the honor to value them at a reasonable price.

— How much the rent since yesterday?

— Monsieur, one louis, with food and care of the horse.

— Good. And that of today?

— Ah! there is the difficulty. Today is the day of the king's arrival; if the court comes for the night's lodging, the day's rent counts. It results that three chambers at two louis each make six louis. Two louis, monsieur, is nothing, but six louis are much.

The stranger, who had been seen red, had become very pale.

He drew from his pocket, with a heroic bravery, a purse embroidered with arms, which he carefully hid in the hollow of his hand. This purse was of a leanness, a flaccidity, a hollowness that did not escape the eye of Cropole.

The stranger emptied this purse into his hand. It contained three double louis, which made a value of six louis, as the innkeeper asked.

However, it was seven that Cropole had required. He therefore looked at the stranger as if to say: And then?

— There remains a louis, does there not, master innkeeper?

— Yes, monsieur, but...

The stranger searched the pocket of his breeches and emptied it; it held a small wallet, a gold key and some white coin.

Of this coin he made up the total of one louis.

— Thank you, monsieur, said Cropole. Now, it remains for me to know if Monsieur counts on still inhabiting his apartment tomorrow, in which case I would keep it for him; whereas if Monsieur did not count on it, I would promise it to His Majesty's people who are to come.

— That is just, said the stranger after a rather long silence, but as I have no more money, as you could see, as however I keep this apartment, you must sell this diamond in the town or keep it as a pledge.

Cropole looked so long at the diamond that the stranger hastened to say:

— I prefer you sell it, monsieur, for it is worth three hundred pistoles. A Jew, is there a Jew in Blois? will give you two hundred, even two hundred fifty, take what he gives you, were he to offer only the price of your lodging. Go!

— Oh! monsieur, cried Cropole, ashamed of the sudden inferiority the stranger threw back at him by this so noble and disinterested surrender, as also by this unalterable patience toward so many quibbles and suspicions; oh! monsieur, I hope indeed that one does not rob in Blois as you seem to believe, and the diamond being worth what you say...

The stranger again struck Cropole with his azure glance.

— I know nothing of it, monsieur, believe me, cried the latter.

— But the jewelers know, question them, said the stranger. Now, I believe our accounts are settled, is it not so, Monsieur the host?

— Yes, monsieur, and to my deep regret, for I fear I have offended Monsieur.

— Not at all, replied the stranger with the majesty of omnipotence.

— Or of having seemed to fleece a noble traveler... Make allowance, monsieur, for necessity.

— Speak of it no more, I tell you, and kindly leave me in my rooms.

Cropole bowed deeply and departed with a bewildered air that accused in him an excellent heart and true remorse. The stranger went to close the door himself, and when he was alone looked at the bottom of his purse, where he had taken a small silk bag containing the diamond, his only resource.

He also questioned the emptiness of his pockets, looked at the papers in his wallet and convinced himself of the absolute destitution he was about to find himself in.

Then he raised his eyes to heaven with a sublime movement of calm and despair, wiped with his trembling hand a few drops of sweat that furrowed his noble brow, and turned back to earth a gaze lately imprinted with a divine majesty.

The storm had just passed far from him, perhaps he had prayed from the depths of his soul.

He drew near the window, resumed his place on the balcony, and remained there immobile, inert, dead, until the moment when, the sky beginning to darken, the first flambeaux crossed the perfumed street, and gave the signal of illumination to all the windows of the town.

Chapter VII — Parry

As the stranger looked with interest at these lights and lent ear to all these noises, Master Cropole entered his chamber with two servants who set the table.

The foreigner paid not the least attention to them. Then Cropole, approaching his host, slipped into his ear with profound respect:

— Monsieur, the diamond has been appraised.

— Ah! said the traveler. Well?

— Well! monsieur, the jeweler of His Royal Highness offers two hundred eighty pistoles.

— Have you them?

— I thought I ought to take them, monsieur; however, I put in the conditions of the bargain that if Monsieur wished to keep his diamond until a receipt of funds... The diamond would be returned.

— Not at all; I told you to sell it.

— Then I obeyed or nearly, since, without having definitively sold it, I have touched the money.

— Pay yourself, added the stranger.

— Monsieur, I shall do so, since you absolutely require it.

A sad smile flitted across the gentleman's lips.

— Put the money on that buffet, said he, turning away at the same time as he indicated the piece of furniture with a gesture.

Cropole deposited a rather large bag, from the contents of which he took the price of the rent.

— Now, said he, Monsieur will not do me the sorrow of not supping... Already dinner was refused; that is insulting to the house of the Medici. See, monsieur, the meal is served, and I would even dare add that it looks good.

The stranger asked for a glass of wine, broke a piece of bread and did not leave the window to eat and drink.

Soon a great noise of fanfares and trumpets was heard; cries rose afar, a confused buzzing filled the lower part of the town, and the first distinct noise that struck the stranger's ear was the tread of horses advancing.

— The king! the king! repeated a noisy and pressing crowd.

— The king! repeated Cropole, who abandoned his host and his ideas of delicacy to satisfy his curiosity.

With Cropole collided and mingled on the stair Madame Cropole, Pittrino, the helpers and the kitchen boys. The cortège advanced slowly, lit by thousands of flambeaux, whether from the street or the windows.

After a company of musketeers and a tightly closed body of gentlemen, came the litter of Monsieur the Cardinal Mazarin. It was drawn like a coach by four black horses. The pages and people of the cardinal walked behind. Then came the coach of the queen mother, her ladies of honor at the doors, her gentlemen on horseback on either side. The king appeared next, mounted on a fine Saxon-bred horse with a broad mane. The young prince showed, as he saluted certain windows whence issued the liveliest acclamations, his noble and gracious face, lit by the flambeaux of his pages.

At the sides of the king, but two paces behind, the Prince of Condé, Monsieur Dangeau and twenty other courtiers, followed by their people and their baggage, closed the truly triumphal march.

This pomp was of military order.

Only some of the courtiers, and among the old, wore traveling dress; almost all were clad in war dress. Many were seen with the gorget and buff coat as in the time of Henri IV and Louis XIII.

When the king passed before him, the stranger, who had leaned over the balcony to see better, and who had hidden his face by resting it on his arm, felt his heart swell and overflow with a bitter jealousy.

The noise of the trumpets intoxicated him, the popular acclamations deafened him; he let his reason fall for a moment into that flood of lights, of tumult and of brilliant images.

— He is king, he! murmured he with an accent of despair and anguish that must have risen to the foot of the throne of God.

Then, before he had returned from his dark reverie, all that noise, all that splendor vanished. At the corner of the street there remained below the stranger only discordant and hoarse voices that cried at intervals still: "Long live the king!" There also remained the six candles held by the inhabitants of the Medici Inn, namely: two candles for Cropole, one for Pittrino, one for each kitchen boy.

Cropole never ceased repeating:

— How fine the king is, and how he resembles his late illustrious father!

— Handsome, said Pittrino.

— And what a proud bearing! added Madame Cropole, already in promiscuous commentary with the neighbors and neighbor women.

Cropole fed these remarks with his personal observations, without noticing that an old man on foot, but leading a small Irish horse by the bridle, was trying to part the group of women and men stationed before the Medici.

But at this moment the voice of the stranger was heard at the window.

— Do contrive, Monsieur the innkeeper, that one may reach your house.

Cropole turned, saw then only the old man, and made way for him.

The window closed.

Pittrino indicated the path to the newcomer, who entered without uttering a word.

The stranger awaited him on the landing, he opened his arms to the old man and led him to a seat, but the latter resisted.

— Oh! no, no, milord, said he. Sit before you! never!

— Parry, cried the gentleman, I beg you... you who come from England... from so far! Ah! it is not at your age one should undergo fatigues like those of my service. Rest...

— I have my answer to give you before all, milord.

— Parry... I entreat you, tell me nothing... for if the news were good, you would not begin your phrase thus. You take a roundabout way, it is that the news is bad.

— Milord, said the old man, do not hasten to alarm yourself. All is not lost, I hope. It is will, perseverance that are needed, it is above all resignation.

— Parry, replied the young man, I came here alone, through a thousand snares and a thousand perils: do you believe in my will? I meditated this voyage ten years, despite all counsels and all obstacles: do you believe in my perseverance? I sold this evening the last diamond of my father, for I had no more wherewith to pay my lodging, and the host was about to cast me out.

Parry made a gesture of indignation to which the young man answered with a handclasp and a smile.

— I still have two hundred seventy-four pistoles, and I find myself rich; I do not despair, Parry: do you believe in my resignation?

The old man raised to heaven his trembling hands.

— Come, said the stranger, disguise nothing from me: what has happened?

— My account shall be short, milord; but in the name of Heaven do not tremble thus!

— It is from impatience, Parry. Come, what did the general say to you?

— First, the general would not receive me.

— He took you for some spy.

— Yes, milord, but I wrote him a letter.

— Well?

— He received it, he read it, milord.

— That letter explained well my position, my wishes?

— Oh! yes, said Parry with a sad smile... it faithfully painted your thought.

— Then, Parry?...

— Then the general sent me back the letter by an aide-de-camp, having me informed that the next day, if I were still within the jurisdiction of his command, he would have me arrested.

— Arrested! murmured the young man; arrested! you, my most faithful servant!

— Yes, milord.

— And yet you had signed Parry!

— In full, milord; and the aide-de-camp knew me at Saint-James, and, added the old man with a sigh, at White Hall!

The young man inclined, dreamy and somber.

— That is what he did before his men, said he, trying to deceive himself... but underhand... from him to you... what did he do? Answer.

— Alas! milord, he sent me four cavalry who gave me the horse on which you saw me return. These cavalry conducted me always at a gallop to the little port of Tenby, threw me rather than embarked me on a fishing boat sailing for Brittany and here I am.

— Oh! sighed the young man, convulsively clutching his throat with his nervous hand, where a sob was rising... Parry, is that all, is that quite all?

“Stories of the world, in your language.”